美国文学选读及赏析名词解释
美国文学史及选读18世纪的名词解释
18世纪的名词解释1. Three unities: Principles of dramatic structure proposed by critics and dramatists of the 16th and the 17th centuries, claiming the authority of Aristotle’s Poetics. The three unities are the unity of action (all the action of the work must occur within one continuous plot without extraneous subplot), the unity of time (all the action of the work must occur within 24 hours, or one whole day), and the unity of place (all the action of the work must occur in one place or city).2. Didactic literature: Literary works that are designed to expound a branch of knowledge, or else to embody, in imaginative or fictional form, a moral, religious, or philosophical doctrine or them. Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism and Edmund Spencer’s The Queene are good example of didactic poetry.3. Satire:It is a literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward it attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation. Satire uses laughter as a weapon, and against a butt that exists outside the work itself. That butt may be an individual, or a type of person, a class, an institution, a nation or even the entire human race (as in much of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels).4. Mock epic: It is a poem employing the lofty style and the conventions of epic poetry to describe a trivial or undignified series of events; thus a kind of satire that mocks its subject by treating it in an inappropriately grandiose manner, usually at some length. The outstanding examples in English literature are Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and Dunciad.5. Farce: It is a type of low comedy that employs improbable or otherwise ridiculous situations and mix-ups, slapsticks and horseplay, and crude and even bawdy dialogue. It smacks the audience full-force in the face, aiming simply to entertain and evoke guffaws from the audience.6. Picaresque novel: Derived from the Spanish word picara, meaning “rogue” or “rascal”, the term generally refers to a basically realistic and often satire work of fiction chronicling the career of an engaging, lower-class rogue-hero, who takes to the road for a sidekick. A well-known example of the picaresque novel is Cervantes’Don Quixote (165). Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is another classic example7. Melodrama: Originally, any drama accompanied by music which was used to enhance the emotional impact and mood of the performance. The term derived from the Greek melos, which means “song”. In early nineteenth-century London, melodramas became increasingly popular, which came to emphasize the conflict between pure good and evil. Its heroes and heroines were inevitably completely moral and uypright, but terrorized, harassed, or otherwise troubled by thoroughly despicable villains. The chief concern of melodrama was to elicit the desired emotional response from the audience.8. Persona:The assumed identity or fictional “I” (literary a “mask”) assumed by a writer in a literary work; thus the speaker in a lyric poem, or the narrator in a fictional narrative. Although the persona often serves as the “voice” of the writer, it nonetheless should not be confused with the writer, for the persona may not accurately reflect the writer’s personal opinions, feelings, or perspectives on a subject.9. Epigram:The term is now used for a statement, whether in verse or prose, which is terse, pointed and witty. The epigram may be on any subject, amatory, elegiac,meditative,complimentary, anecdotal, or most often satiric.10. Gothic novel: An alternative term is Gothic romance. It is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle of monastery. Following the appearance of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the Gothic novel flourished in Britain from the 1790s to the 1820s, dominated by Ann Radcliffe, whose The Mysteries of Udolpho had may imitators.11. Graveyard school of poetry: It refers to a group of eighteen-century English poets who emphasized subjectivity, mystery, and melancholy. Death, mortality (immortality), and gloom were frequent subjects of elements of their meditative poem, which were often actually set in graveyards. Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is the most famous example.12. Neoclassicism: It is a style of Western literature that flourished from themid-seventeenth until the end of the eighteenth century and the rise of Romanticism. The neoclassicists looked to the great classical writers for inspiration and guidance, considering them to have mastered the noblest literary forms, tragic epic and the epic. Neoclassical writers shared several beliefs. They believed that literature should both instruct and delight, and the proper subject of art was humanity. Neoclassicism stressed rules, reason, harmony, balance, restraint, decorum, order, serenity, realism, and form —above all, an appeal to the intellect rather than emotion. The Restoration in 1660 marked the beginning of the Neoclassical Period in England, whose writers included John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, etc.13. Fiction: In an inclusive sense, fiction is any literary narrative, whether in prose or verse, which is invented instead of being an account of events that in fact happened. In a narrow sense, however, fiction denotes only narratives that are written in prose (the novel and the short story).14. Antihero: It is a protagonist in a modern work who does not exhibit the qualities of the tradition hero. Instead of being a grand and admirable figure—brave, honest, and magnanimous, for example—an antihero is all too ordinary and may even be petty or downright dishonest. The use of nonheroic protagonist occurs as early as the picaresque novel of the sixteenth century, and the heroine of Defoe’s Moll Flanders is a thief and a prostitute.15. Foreshadowing:The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest what will happen later. Writers use foreshadowing to create interest and to build suspense. Sometimes foreshadowing also prepares the reader for the ending of the story.。
美国文学史及选读的名词解释（全）
1. American Puritanism it it comes comes comes from from from the the the American American American puritans, puritans, puritans, who who who were were were the the the first first first immigrants immigrants immigrants moved moved moved to to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination （预言）（预言） and salvation （拯救） were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness （虔诚,尽职）， thrift and sobriety （清醒）（清醒）（清醒） were praised. 2. Romanticism: the literature term was first applied to the writers of the 18th century in Europe who broke away from the formal rules of classical writing. When it was used used in in in American American American literature literature literature it it it referred referred referred to to to the the the writers writers writers of of of the the the middle middle middle of of of the the 19th century century who who who stimulated stimulated （刺激）（刺激） the the sentimental sentimental sentimental emotions emotions emotions of of of their their their readers. readers. They wrote of the mysterious of life, love, birth and death. The Romantic writers expressed themselves freely and without restraint. They wrote all all kinds kinds of materials, poetry, essays, plays, fictions, history, works of travel, and biography. 3. 2. 2. Transcendentalism Transcendentalism Transcendentalism ((先验说,超越论): ): is is is a a a philosophic philosophic philosophic and and and literary literary literary movement movement that that flourished flourished flourished in in in New New New England, England, England, particular particular particular at at at Concord, Concord, Concord, as as as a a a reaction reaction reaction against against Rationalism Rationalism and and and Calvinism Calvinism Calvinism ((理性主义and 喀尔文主义). ). Mainly Mainly Mainly it it it stressed stressed intuitive intuitive understanding understanding understanding of of of God, God, God, without without without the the the help help help of of of the the the church, church, church, and and and advocated advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau. 4. Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s ，it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and and background background background that that that it it it could could could not not not have have have been been been written written written in in in any any any other other other place place place or or or by by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) ) the the the distinctive distinctive distinctive natural, natural, natural, social social social and and and linguistic linguistic linguistic features. features. features. It It It is is characteristic of vernacular(本国语本国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor 5. Stream of consciousness （意识流）： It is one of the modern literary techniques. It is is the the the style style style of of of writing writing writing that that that attempts attempts attempts to to to imitate imitate imitate the the the natural natural natural flow flow flow of of of a a a character’s character’s thoughts, thoughts, feelings, feelings, feelings, reflections, reflections, reflections, memories, memories, memories, and and and mental mental mental images images images as as as the the the character character experiences experiences them. them. them. It It It was was was first first first used used used in in in 1922 1922 1922 by by by the the the Irish Irish Irish novelist novelist novelist James James James Joyce. Joyce. Those novels broke through the bounds of time and space, and depicted vividly and and skillfully skillfully skillfully the the the unconscious unconscious unconscious activity activity activity of of of the the the mind mind mind fast fast fast changing changing changing and and and flowing flowing incessantly 。
美国文学-名词解释
美国文学1.殖民地时期及独立革命战争时期的美国文学Philip Freneau（菲利普﹒弗瑞诺）(1)He was considered as the “Poet of the American revolution” as the most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century. (2)He was a satirist, a bitter polemicist. (3)He wrote many poems encouraging revolution and encouraging the glory that would be won by overcoming the British.The Wild Honey Suckle 《野金银花》The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人的殡葬地》The British Ship《英国囚船》The Rising Glory of America 《美洲光辉的兴起》(1)The Wild Honey Suckle is Freneau’s best lyric (2)It anticipated the 19th—century use of simple nature imagery.The Indian Burying Ground anticipated romantic primitivism and the celebration of the “Noble Savage”.Thomas Jefferson（托马斯﹒杰弗逊）The Declaration of Independence《独立宣言》(1)The Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776. (2)It not only announced the birth of a new nation, but also expounded a philosophy of human freedom. (3)It lists 13 cruelties committed by the King of Britain. (4)The famous lines are: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”(5) Thomas Jefferson’s thought was inspired by the thoughts of John Locke.浪漫主义时期的美国文学Calvinism（加尔文主义）(1)Calvinism refers to the religious teachings of John Calvin and his followers. (2) Calvin taught that only certain persons, the elect, were chosen by God to be saved, and these could be saved only by God’s grace. (3) Calvinism forms the basis for the doctrines and practices of the Huguenots, Puritans, Presbyterians, and the Reformed churches.American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义）(1) American Romanticism is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature.(2) It was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the feelings ,intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense. They emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group. They affirmed the inner life of the self, and cherished strong interest in the past, the wild, the remote, the mysterious and the strange. They stressed the element “Americanness” in their works.(3)It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Gra ss. (4) Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance.” (5) American Romantici sts include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, WilliamCullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others.Transcendentalism（超验主义）(1) Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Over—soul, and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self—reliant. (2)New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.Free verse（自由体诗歌）(1)Free verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conventional rules of meter.(2) Free verse was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. (3)Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate instead the free rhythms of natural speech. (4)Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is, perhaps, the most notable example.Symbol（象征）(1) Symbol means an act, a person, a thing, or a spectacle that stands for something else, usually something less palpable than the named symbol. (2) The relationship between the symbol and its referent is not often one of simple equivalence. Allegorical symbols usually express a neater equivalence with what they stand for than the symbols found in modern realistic fiction.Theme（主题）(1) Theme means the unifying point or general idea of a literary work. (2) It provides an answer to such questions as “What is the work about”(3)Each literary work carries its own theme or themes. For example, King Lear has many themes, among which are blindness and madness.现实主义与自然主义时期的美国文学American Naturalism(美国自然主义)The American Naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.American Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.Darwinism(达尔文主义)Darwinism is a term that comes from Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory.Darwinist think that those who survive in the world are the fittest and those who fail to adapt themselves to the environment will perish. They believe that man has evolved from lower forms of life. Humans are special not because God created them in His image, but because they have successfully adapted to changing environmental conditions and have passed on their survival-making characteristics genetically.Influenced by this theory, some American naturalist writers apply Darwinism as an explanation of human nature and social reality.Local Colorists(乡土作家)Generally speaking, the writing of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town.Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historian of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions. They worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the locale.Major local colorists include Hamlin Garland, Mark Twain , Kate Chopin, etc.Theodore Dreiser(西奥多·德莱塞)He is generally acknowledged as one of America’s literary naturalists.Works Sister Carrie《嘉莉妹妹》(1) Sister Carrie tells about a poor country girl (Carrie Meeber) who goesto Chicago to pursue the American Dream.(2) The novel shows Dreiser’s naturalistic view about life by illustratingthe purposelessness of life.(3) The dominant symbol of the novel is the rocking chair that is the rocking chair that is indicative of the uncertainty of life.Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》Trilogy of Desire《欲望》三部曲a. The Financier《金融家》b. The Titan《巨人》c. The Stoic《斯多葛》The Genius 《天才》An American Tragedy 《美国的悲剧》(1) An American Tragedy is Dreiser’s greatest work and the title of theBook implies Dreiser intention to tell us that it is the social pressurethat makes Clyde’s downfall inevitable.(2) Clyde’s tragedy is a tragedy that depends upon the American socialsystem which encouraged people to pursue the “dream of success ” atall costs.Sherwood Anderson (舍伍德·安德森)He has been called the first of America’s “psychological writers” because he first explored the motivations and frustrations of his fictional characters in terms of Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychology.He tremendously influenced such writers as Hemingway and Faulkner.Works Winesburg, Ohio《小镇畸人》(1) Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of 23 interrelated stories ofsamll-town life. These stories sound morbid and grotesque, butUnderneath them runs a strong desire to communicate, and love andbe loved.(2) It won the author a foremost position in contemporary Americanliterary.现代时期的美国文学The Lost Generation (迷惘的一代)The Lost Generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World War I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.The three best-know representatives of Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.Others usually included among the list are Sherwood Anderson, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Ford Maddox Ford and Zelda Fitzgerald.Imagism (意象派诗歌)Imagism came into being in Britain ans U.S. around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles:i) direct treatment of subject matter;ii) economy of expression;iii) as regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome.Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem.The Beat Generation (垮掉的一代)The members of the Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy ofnon-conformity and for its non-conforming style.The major beat writings are Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. Howl became the manifesto of the Beat Generation.American Dream (美国梦)American Dream refers to the dream of material success, in which one, regardless of social status, acquires wealth and gains success by working hard and good luck.In literature, the theme of American Dream recurs. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby comes from the west to the east with the dream of material success. By bootlegging and other illegal means he fulfilled his dream but ended up being killed. The novel tells the shattering of American Dream rather than its success.Expressionism (表现主义)Expressionism refers to a movement in Germany early in the 20th century, in which a number of painters sought to avoid the representation of external reality and, instead, to project a highly personal or subjective vision of the world.Expressionism is a reaction against realism or naturalism, aiming at presenting a post-war world violently distorted.Works noted for expressionism include: Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, etc..In a further sense, the term is sometimes applied to the belief that literary works are essentially expressions of their own authors’ moods and thoughts; this has been the dominant assumption about literature since the rise of Romanticism.Feminism (女权主义)(1) Feminism incorporates both a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality.(2) In general, feminism is the ideology of women’s liberation based on the belief that women suffer injustice because of their sex. Under this broad umbrella various feminists offer differing analyses of the causes, or agents, of female oppression.(3) Definitions of feminism by feminists tend to be shaped by their training, ideology or race. So, for example, Marxist and Socialist feminists stress the interaction within feminism of class with gender and focus on social distinctions between men and women. Black feminists argue much more for an integrated analysis which can unlock the multiple systems of oppression.Hemingway Code Hero (海明威式英雄)Hemingway Hero, also called code hero, is one who, wounded but strong, more sensitive, enjoys the pleasures of life (sex, alcohol, sport) in face of ruin and death, and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.Barnes in The Sun Also Rises, Henry in A Farewell to Arms and Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea are typical of Hemingway Hero.Harlem Renaissance (哈莱姆文艺复兴)（1）Harlem Renaissance refers to a period of outstanding literary vigor and creativity that occurred in the United States during the 1920s.（2）The Harlem Renaissance changed the images of literature created by many black and white American writers. New black images were no longer obedient and docile, instead they showed a new confidence and racial pride.(3) The leading figures are Langston Hughs, James Weldon Johnson, Wallace Thurman, etc.. Impressionism (印象主义)Impressionism is a style of painting that gives the impression made by the subject on the artist without much attention to details. Writers accepted the same conviction that the personal attitudes and moods of the writer were legitimate elements in depicting character or setting or action. Briefly, it is a style of literature characterized by the creation of general impressions and moods rather than realistic moods.现代时期的美国文学Ezra Pound(1) He was identified as the father of modern American poetry and the most influential leader of the Imagist Movement.(2) He had an enormous influence on the modernist writers in Britain and America after WWII.Works The Cantos《诗章》In a Station of the Metro 《在地铁站里》(1) In a Station of the Metro serves as a typical example of the Imagist ideas.(2) The one-image poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station.(3) “Apparition” suggests a visible appearance of something not present, and especially of a dead person. Here the faces of people in the subway station are compared to petals on a wet, black bough.A Pact 《盟约》(1) A Pact is a poem in which Pound started to find some agreement between “Whitmanesque” free verse, which he had attacked for its carelessness in composition.(2) In the poem “broke the new wood” means that Whitman made experiments with the conventions of traditional poetry. “commerce” means the exchange of views or attitudes. The poem indicates that Pound would like to learn from the free verse and show respect to Whitman.。
美国文学名词解释
美国文学名词解释美国文学，作为世界文学的重要组成部分，有着丰富多彩的文化背景和独特的创作风格。
在这篇文章中，我将为您解释几个与美国文学相关的重要名词。
1. 美国文学：美国文学是指在美国国土上创作的文学作品，包括小说、诗歌、戏剧和散文等各种文体。
美国文学自17世纪初殖民地时期开始出现，并逐渐形成独特的风格和主题，如自由、探索、个人价值观等。
该文学受到欧洲文学、非裔美国文学、拉丁美洲文学等多个文学传统的影响。
2. 讽刺文学：讽刺文学是通过调侃、嘲笑或批评等手法，通过善意或恶意地对社会、人物、社会习俗等进行揭示和描述的一种文学形式。
美国文学中讽刺常常用来表达对社会问题的关注以及对不公正现象的讽刺批评。
作家马克·吐温的小说《哈克贝里·费恩历险记》便是美国文学中著名的讽刺作品之一。
3. 大都市文学：大都市文学是指以城市为背景、以城市生活为题材的文学作品。
美国是大都市文学的发源地之一，纽约市成为该文学流派的中心。
大都市文学反映了城市的动态与繁华，同时也揭示了城市中的社会问题和人际关系。
美国作家F·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德的小说《了不起的盖茨比》，以及薇拉·刘易斯和李欧·斯坦巴克的作品都是著名的大都市文学作品。
4. 美国本土文学：美国本土文学是指探讨、描写和反映美国本土历史、文化、民族特色的文学作品。
该文学形式着重于展示美洲原住民、欧洲移民、非裔美国人和其他少数族裔的文化传统和经验。
美国作家奥兰多·费斯特的小说《渐近线》以及路易斯·埃里斯的小说《米南多洛之歌》都是美国本土文学的代表作品。
5. 后现代主义文学：后现代主义文学是指具有反传统、颠覆常规、模糊现实与虚幻界限的文学形式。
在晚20世纪以后的美国文学中，后现代主义作品开始兴起。
该文学形式常常使用非线性叙事、多重视角和流派的混合等技巧来表达个体性、主观性和相对主义等概念。
美国作家托马斯·品钦的小说《地下时光》以及大卫·福斯特·华莱士的小说《无人生还》都是后现代主义文学的代表作品。
【英美文学选读】名词解释笔记总结
01. Humanism（人文主义）Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance.It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life，but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.02. Renaissance（文艺复兴）The word “Renaissance”means “rebirth”，it meant the reintroduction into western Europe of the full cultural heritage of Greece and Rome.2>the essence of the Renaissance is Humanism. Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted well down into the era of Humanism and reformation.3> the real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with William Shakespeare being the leading dramatist.03. Metaphysical poetry（玄学派诗歌）Metaphysical poetry is commonly used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne.2>with a rebellious spirit，the Metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry.3>the diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassical periods，and echoes the words and cadences of common speech.4>the imagery is drawn from actual life.04. Classicism（古典主义）Classicism refers to a movement or tendency in art，literature，or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal，and places value on reason，clarity，balance，and order. Classicism，with its concern for reason and universal themes，is traditionally opposed to Romanticism，which is concerned with emotions and personal themes.05. Enlightenment（启蒙运动）Enlightenment movement was a progressive philosophical and artistic movement which flourished in France and swept through western Europe in the 18th century.2> the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from 14th century to the mid-17th century.3>its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.4>it celebrated reason or rationality，equality and science. It advocated universal education.5>famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like Alexander pope, Jonathan Swift, etc.06.Neoclassicism（新古典主义）In the field of literature，the enlightenment movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works.2>this tendency is known as neoclassicism. The Neoclassicists held that forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Virgil and those of the contemporary French ones.3> they believed that the artistic ideals should be order，logic，restrained emotion and accuracy，and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.07. The Graveyard School（墓地派诗歌）The Graveyard School refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life. Past and present，with death and graveyard as themes.2>Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy written in a country churchyard is its most representative work.08. Romanticism（浪漫主义）1>In the mid-18th century， a new literary movement called romanticism came to Europe and then to England.2>It was characterized by a strong protest against the bondage of neoclassicism，which emphasized reason，order and elegant wit. Instead，romanticism gave primary concern to passion，emotion，and natural beauty.3>In the history of literature. Romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and experience. 4> The English romantic period is an age of poetry which prevailed in England from 1798 to 1837. The major romantic poets include Wordsworth，Byron and Shelley.09. Byronic Hero（拜伦式英雄）Byronic hero refers to a proud，mysterious rebel figure of noble origin.2> with immense superiority in his passions and powers，this Byronic Hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corruptsociety. And would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government，in religion，or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.3> Byron‘s chief contribution to English literature is his creation of the “Byronic Hero”10. Critical Realism（批判现实主义）Critical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.2> It means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between 1875 and 1920 to apply the methods of realistic fiction to the criticism of society and the examination of social issues.3> Realist writers were all concerned about the fate of the common people and described what was faithful to reality.4> Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist.11. Aestheticism（美学主义）The basic theory of the Aesthetic movement——“art for art‘s sake” was set forth by a French poet，Theophile Gautier，the first Englishman who wrote about the theory of aestheticism was Walter Pater.2> aestheticism places art above life，and holds that life should imitate art，not art imitate life.3> According to the aesthetes，all artistic creation is absolutely subjective as opposed to objective. Art should be free from any influence of egoism. Only when art is for art‘s sake，can it be immortal. They believed that art should be unconcerned with controversial issues，such as politics and morality，and that it should be restricted to contributing beauty in a highly polished style.4> This is one of the reactions against the materialism and commercialism of the Victorian industrial era，as well as a reaction against the Victorian convention of art for morality‘s sake，or art for money’s sake.美学运动的基本原则“为艺术而艺术”最初由法国诗人西奥费尔。
美国文学史名词解释_综合版
美国文学史名词解释_综合版第一篇：美国文学史名词解释_综合版美国文学选读复习资料the settlement of North American continent by English started in the early 17th century.Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World—a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England.Puritanism, however was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincidentwith the founding of New Zealand;it was also a way of being in the world—a style of response to lived experience—that has reverberated through American life ever since.As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind.American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature.American Romanticism The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War.• Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism.(subjectivity)• For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important thanreason and common sense.• They emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group,against authority.• The affirmed the inner life of the self, and wanted to be free to develop andexpress his own inner thoughts.New England Poets: William Cullen Bryant;Henry Wadsworth Longfellow;Writers: James Fenimaore Cooper The Spy(1821)The Leatherstocking Tales(1823—1841)The Pilot(1824)The Red Rover(1827)Washington Irving（“The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Grayon” “Bracebridge Hall”“Tales of a Traveller”“The History of the Life and Voyages of ChristopherColumbus ”）American TranscendentalismIn the realm of art and literature it meant the shattering of pseudo-classic rules and forms in favor of a spirit of freedom, the creation of works filled with the new passion for nature and common humanity and incarnating a fresh sense of the wonder, promise, and romance of life.Transcendentalism① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe.② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual.To them, the individual is the most important element of Societ y.③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.Nature was not purely matter.It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.Writers Emerson’s：Nature；Self-Reliance；The American Scholar；The Over-soul；H.D.Thoreau：WaldenHenry Wadsworth LongfellowWalt Whitman：Leaves of Grass Emily Dickinson：I Died for Beauty；Because I couldnot stop for DeathWilliam Faulkner(1897-19621949 Nobel priceAs I Lay Dying(1930)Light in the August(1932)Absalom, Absalom(1936)Go Down Moses(1942)Ernest HemingwayIceberg Principle(Theory)“grace under pressure”Major Works:The Sun Also Rises 1926(Jake Barnes)A Farewell to Arms 1928(a tragic story about war and love)(Frederic Henry andCatherine Barkley)For Whom the Bell Tolls 1940(Spanish civil war)(Robert Jordan)The Old Man and the Sea 1952(Santiago)Herman Melville代表作：白鲸Moby DickOther Works are: Billy Budd,Typee, Omoo, Mardi.Nathaniel HawthorneThe Scarlet LetterMosses from an Old Manse;Twice-Told Tales;The Marble Faun;The House of theSeven GablesRealismAs a literary movement, the Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticismwith the Civil War It was a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism andsentimentalism, and paved the way to Modernism.This literary interest in the so-called “reality” of life started a new period in theAmerican literary writing known as The Age of Realism.local colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th(1860s—1870s).The feature of local colorism are:(1)presenting a localedistinguished from the outside world;(2)describing the exoticof the picturesque;(3)glorifying the past;(4)showing things as they are;(5)influence of setting oncharacters.The well known local colorism authors were Mark Twain with his bookTom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Bret Harte’s with his TheLuck of the Roaring Camp.American naturalists accepted the more negativeinterpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to accout for the behaviorof those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complexcombinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economicforces.2)naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writingbecomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.It isno more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to humanexistence.3>Dreiser with his Sister Carrie is a leading figure of his school.1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the directtreatment of the thing” and the economy of wording.“poetic techniques to recordexactly the momentary impressions”Three main principles of the Imagist Movement(1912):[1] direct treatment of poetic subjects[2] elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words,to use no word that doesnot contribute to the presentation.[3] rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in thesequence of a metronome.4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-knownpoem.The Modern PeriodPart I The 1920s-1930s(the second renaissance of American literature)l The Roaring Twenties(economically)l The Jazz Age(socially)l“lost” and “waste land”(spiritually)There had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and naturalsciences.Darwinism(Darwin), Socialism(Karl Marx), Psychoanalysis(Sigmund Freud)The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe thepost-war I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense ofbetrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full ofyouthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, hadlove affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the threebest-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway andJohn dos Passos.The Beat Generation is a group of American young writersand artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.the member of the beat generationwere new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy,creativity.The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non conformity and for its non conforming style.The major writing are jack Kerouac’s on the road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.American DreamThe is the idea held by many in the United States that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity.These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America.IMAGERY: A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the “mental pictures” that readers experience with a passage of literature.It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor.PuritanismAmerican Puritanism was practice and belief of Puritans.Puritans were the people who wanted to purify the Church of England and then were persecuted in England.They came to America for various reasons.But because they were a group of serious and religious people, they carried a code of value and a philosophy of life.To them, religion was the most important thing.They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original s in, total depravity and limited atonement for God’s grace.They also believed in hard working, piety and sobriety.In a word, American Puritanism exerted great influences upon American thought and literature.第二篇：美国文学史名词解释It were flourishing from the beginning of 17th to the middle period of 18th.They stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement from God‟s grace.They went to America to prove that they were God‟s chosen people who would enjoy God‟s blessings on earth and in Heaven.Finally, they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.Both doctrinaire and an opportunist.Its Influence on literary were as follows:（影响）(1)American Literature is based on a myth------the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden.(2)The American Puritan‟s metaphorical made of perception----symbolism.The representatives were Edwards(The Freedom of the Will), Franklin(On the Art of Self-improvement), Crevecoeur(Letters from an American Farmer).代表作家及代表作：Captain John SmithTrue Relation of Virginia(1608)Anne Bradstreet“To My Dear and Loving Husband”Benjamin Franklin:The Autobiography of Benjamin FranklinRomanticism was a complex artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution.Elements of Romanticism1.Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.2.Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier.不要这么多，我就删掉了3、4、5条。
(完整版)美国文学史及选读名词解释
美国文学史及选读名词解释1。
Transcendentalism19th—century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. In their religious quest， the Transcendentalists rejected the conventions of 18th—century thought； and what began in a dissatisfaction with Unitarianism developed into a repudiation of the whole established order.2。
Langston HughesAmerican poet and writer emphasized on lower—class black life。
He established himself as a major force of the Harlem Renaissance。
In 1926， in the Nation, he provided the movement with a manifesto when he skillfully argued the need for both race pride and artistic independence in his most memorable essay， 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” In many ways Hughes always remained loyal to the principles he had laid down for the younger black writers in 1926。
美国文学史及选读的名词解释(全) (2)
Colonial Period:1.American Puritanismit comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination（预言）and salvation（拯救）were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness（虔诚,尽职），thrift and sobriety（清醒）were praised.Romanticism Period:2.Romanticism: the literature term was first applied to the writers of the18th century in Europe who broke away from the formal rules of classical writing. When it was used in American literature it referred to the writers of the middle of the 19th century who stimulated（刺激）the sentimental emotions of their readers. They wrote of the mysterious of life, love, birth and death. The Romantic writers expressed themselves freely and without restraint. They wrote all kinds of materials, poetry, essays, plays, fictions, history, works of travel, and biography.3.Gothic tradition (哥特传统): Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a storyof terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense, many novels do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or claustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as Gothic. It contributed to the new emotional climate of Romanticism.4.Transcendentalism (先验说,超越论): is a philosophic and literarymovement that flourished in New England, particular at Concord, as a reaction against Rationalism and Calvinism (理性主义and喀尔文主义). Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau.5.Stream of consciousness（意识流）：It is one of the modern literarytechniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce. Those novels broke through the bounds of time and space, and depicted vividly and skillfully the unconscious activity of the mind fast changing and flowing incessantly。
美国文学史及选读_部分名词解释 解释详细,备有汉语解释
Free V erse:is poetry that is based on irregular rhythmic cadence（抑扬顿挫，节奏）recurring ,withvariations of phrases ,image ,and syntactical patterns rather than the conventional use of meter . In other word ,free verse has no rhythm scheme, pattern or line length, new form, new subject, message was always moreimportant than form .However ,much poetic language and devices（手段，策略）are found in free verse .It is used in Walt Whitman’s poems.Local Colorism: is defined by Hamlin Garland加兰in his Crumbling Idols as having “such quality of texture（手感，质感）and background that is could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native”Texture refers to the elements which characterize（是---特征，以----为特征）a local culture , elements such as speech , customs , and mores peculiar to one particular place.Background covers physical身体setting and those distinctive qualities of landscape which human thoughtand behavior.Other definition: a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early 1870s in America. It may be defined as the careful attention in speech, dress or behavior peculiar to a geographical locality.The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion错觉，幻想of an indigenous土生土长的，固有的little word with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside.Major Local Colorists: Mark Twain; Hamlin Garland (Main Travelled Roads)Imagism:1) It is a Movement in U.S and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete明确的，实体的language and figures of speech, modern subject matter主旨, metrical韵律freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise精确的visual看得见的images.2) It grew out of the symbolism movement in 1912 and was initially led by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others.3) The Imagist manifesto宣言came out in 1912 showed three Imagist poetic principles:A: Direct treatment of the “thing” whether subject or objective.B: To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.C: As regarding rhythm: to compose创作in the sequenc e有关联的一组事物, 一连串of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome节拍器.4) Pound defined the image as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time,版权所有本人亲自打出来的期末复习资料and later he extended this definition when he started that an image was “a vortex旋窝or cluster串of fused熔化; 融合ideas, endowed with energy”.5) The existed great influence in Chinese poetry on the movement of Imagism. Imagists found value in Chinese poetry was because Chinese poetry is, by virtue长处of the ideographic象形文字and pictographic nature of Chinese language, essentially imagistic poetry.The Lost Generation:is a term used to describe a group of American intellectuals知识分子, poets, artists and writers fled to France in the post WW1 years to reject the values of American materialism唯物主义and to seek the bohemian(放浪者)(a person with artistic or literary interests who disregards conventional standards ofbehavior) lifestyle in Pairs. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.Refers to the disillusioned使不再抱幻想intellectuals and aesthetes审美家of the years following WW1, who rebelled against former ideals and values but could replace them only by despair or a cynical愤世嫉俗的hedonism(快乐主义).The main representatives代表人of Lost Generation include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and so on.Modernism:is a culture movement that is generally includes the progressive不断有进展的art and architecture建筑学,design, literature, music, painting ,dance and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of 20th century, particular in the years following WW1. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against the 19th century academic and historicist tradition, and embraced信奉，拥抱the new economic,social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.Modernism in literature is not easily to summarized, but the key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the cerebral诉诸理性的;非感情方面的rather than emotive-aspects.The avant-garde革新者movements that followed-including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism立体派, Futurism未来主义, Expressionism, Constructivism构成主义and Abstract抽象Expressionism are generally defined as Modernist.版权所有本人亲自打出来的期末复习资料The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment脱离, 分离, dislocation脱位, and alienation疏远of men in the world, and by the emphasis on experimentation and formalism形式主义and objectivism which are, in most cases, a reaction to the cataclysm大灾难known as the Modern Age.Among the American writer, the best known Modernism is Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and so on.Transcendentalism:is a philosophical哲学上的and literary movement that flourished繁荣in New England from about 1836-1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy正统观念of Calvinism and rationalism理性主义of the Unitarian唯一神论者Church, developing their own faith centering on the divinit y宗教的，神学的of humanity and the natural world. Transcendentalismderived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle, Coleridge and Wordsworth. Its mystical aspects were partly influenced by Indian and Chinese religiousteachings. The beliefs that God is immanent天生的，内在的in each person and in nature and that individual intuition直觉is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance,and rejection of traditional authority. The Ideas of transcendentalism were mostly eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essay as Nature and Self-reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden. Major Features:A. placing emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe --- a new way of looking at the world (omnipresent无所不在, omniscient无所不知, omnipotent全能的)B. the importance of the individual as the most important element of society. --- A new way of looking at man (The regeneration新生，革新of the society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual, through his self-perfection, self-culture, self-improvement, self-reliance)C. offering a fresh perception认识，看法of nature as symbolic of Spirit or God. (Nature was not purely matter. It was the garment衣服of the Oversoul.)Jazz Age:describe he period of 1920s and 1930s, the years between WW1 and WW2, particular in NorthAmerican; with the rise of the Great Depression, the values of the age saw much decline. The most representative literature work is The Great Gatsby highlighting强调what some describe as the decadence衰落，堕落and hedonism享乐主义, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term 版权所有本人亲自打出来的期末复习资料。
美国文学选读名词解释
1.Puritanism (清教主义)：Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.1.) simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions.2.)In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,eapecially hostility to social pleasure and religion .3.)with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature .to some extentit is a state of mind , a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets.4.) Actually it is a code of values , a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds , also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense .5) Major topic:American Puritanism IntroductionThere were no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures, American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in the mother country.Therefore the writing in this period was essentially two kinds:(1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people “at home” what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration;(2) highly theoretical, generally polemical^辩的)，discussions of religious questions.2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义)I.What is Romanticism a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period.associated with imagination and boundlessness, as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U. S.A was Transcendentalism.Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, and those of the late periodcontain Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe.□.Features of A merican romanticism（1）It was the expression of “a real new experience（全新体验）”.（2）American Puritanism was a cultural heritage. Many American romantic writings intended to edify（启发）more than they entertained.⑶American Romanticism is full of “newness（新奇）”. Ideals：Individualism; political equality Dream：America: a new Garden of Eden （4）American romanticism was both imitative and independent.3..transcendentalism、（超验主义）transcendentalism: It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbols of the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance o f the individual and believed that the individual was the most important element in society and that the ideal kind of individual was self-reliant and unselfish. Transcendentalists envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they have control and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.5.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.6.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who represent certain characteristics of their own countries.7.the lost generation: reveals the huge destruction of the wars to the young generation. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colonyof “expatriates”. They were lost in disillusionment.8.American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful andsatisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism （资本主义），its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights9.American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience .10.Black Humor:also called Black Comedy, writing that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones. The term did not come into common use until the 1960s. Then it was applied to the works of the novelists Nathanael West, Vladimir Nabokov, and Joseph Heller. The latter's Catch-22 （1961） is a notable example, in which Captain Yossarian battles the horrors of air warfare over the Mediterranean during World War II with hilarious irrationalities matching the stupidities of the military system. The term black comedy has been applied to playwrights in the Theatre of the Absurd.11.Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s, it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial（详细的）authenticity（确实性）,as local colorists tried to immortalize（使不朽）the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular（本国语） language and satirical （讽刺的）humor12.Code HeroGeneral Features:1.He has great physical potential and courage.2.The “ code heroes ” have strong willpower.3.Thirdly , another important feature of the “code heroes" is their loyalty.4.Fourthly , the" code heroes "maintain great dignity in all situations.5.Fifthly , the “code heroes ” are endowed with certain specialized skills , such as fishing , bull fighting , and hunting , etc6.the “code heroes "are always put in some touch-and go situations, what the heroes must always face up to is their own personal fear of death and the threat of destruction, and it is this obstacle, death, that they have to overcome.13.iceberg theory:The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.2 American TranscendentalismAs a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism （also known as “ American Renaissance"） flourished in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.Transcendentalism 超验主义（+ H. D. Thoreau; NathanielHawthorne;)The major features of Transcendentalism:①The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙②The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society.个体+社会③The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.自然+上帝3 Stream of Consciousness 意识流or “interior monologue”,内心独白is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce.。
美国文学史及选读名词解释
美国文学史及选读名词解释1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.2. The Lost Generation Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “lost Generation”, devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.3. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the Church of England.4. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.Imagism 意象派：is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration.5、Realism：（现实主义）appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable. the dialects, customs, sights.现实主义有浓厚的美国本土特色，是浪漫主义故事情节和现实主义描写相结合的产物：美国风味的方言、风俗、各种观点6.Naturalism：自然主义 a new and harsher realism, 新型的更为冷峻的现实主义，产生悲观的流派，产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末，因为Perception of society’s disorders 对社会无序的感知。
美国文学选读期末名词解释
1.American Romanticism(美国浪漫主义)①Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions.②The romantic period in American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil war.③Irving, Whitman and Thoreau are the representatives.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influencefeatures(1)American romanticism was in essence the expression of ―a real newexperience and contained ―an alien quality‖ for the simple reason that ―thespirit of the place‖ was radically new and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. Americanromantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romanticwritings intended to edify more than they entertained.(3)The ―newness‖ of Americans as a nation is in connection with AmericanRomanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, Americanromanticism was both imitative and independent.浪漫主义两大主题：爱和大自然的力量The social and cultural background of Romanticism：---The young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country.---The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands.---The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.---The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world wa s a source of goodness and man’s societies as a source of corruption.2. Transcendentalism (超验主义、先验主义) : It was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the middle 19th century. It began as a protest against the general state of culture and society. Among transcendentalist’s core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that “transcends”the physical and empirical(以观察或实验为依据的) and is only realized through the individual’s intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson（爱默生）, Henry David Thoreau（梭罗）, Walt Whitman（惠特曼）, etc. It is a kind of philosophy that stresses belief in transcendental things and the importanceof spiritual rather than material existence. （相信超凡的事物，认为精神存在比物质存在更重要).American Transcendentalism(美国超验主义)①Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century, which flourished from about 1835 to 1860.②Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Oversoul, the individual and nature. Specifically, they stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.③The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.Ralph Waldo Emerson①Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid 19th century.②He expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature.③Besides, his The American Scholar was considered to be American’s ―Intellectual Declaration of Independence‖.Oversoul①It is an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come of which all things are a part.②It is a key doctrine for Transcendentalists.Self-reliance①Self-reliance is an essay written by American Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.②It contains the most solid statement of one of his repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas.③These ideas are considered a reaction to a commercial identify. Emerson calls for a return to individual identity.Individualism(个人主义)①Individualism is a moral, political, and social philosophy, which emphasizes individual liberty, the primary importance of the individual, and the “virtues of self-reliance”.②It is thus directly opposed to collectivism, social psychology and sociology, which consider the individual’s rapport to the society or communit y.③It is often confused with ―egoism‖, but an individualist need not be an egoist. Walden①It is one of the American classics written by Henry David Thoreau.②It records his experiment in living at Walden pond, his sympathetic understanding of nature, his meditation on the meanings of life and his social criticism.③Compared with Emerson’s Nature, it is more radical and social-minded.3.Free verse (自由体诗歌)①Free verse is a general term referring to the modern form of verse with no fixed foot, rhythm or rime schemes.②It was first written and labeled by a group of French poets of the late 19th century.③Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many American poets, includingWalt Whitman, Ezra Pound and Carl Sandburg.“The Song of Myself”①It is the best known poem in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.②It is a celebration of the individual as well as the common people.4.American Realism（美国现实主义）①The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been preferred to as the age of Realism.②It was a literary doctrine that called for ―reality and truth‖ in the depiction of ordinary life. It is, in literature, an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity.③Three dominant figures are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain and Henry James. Local Colorism/ Regionalism (地方特色主义)①Local Colorism is popular in the late 19th century, particularly among authors in the south of the U.S.②This style relied heavily on using words, phrases, and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place. The term has come to mean any device which implies a specific focus, whether it is geographical or temporal.③A well-know local colorism author was Mark Twain with his book The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn.5.Jazz Age(爵士乐时代)①The Jazz Age refers to the 1920s, a time marked by hedonism and excitement in the life of flaming youth.②With the rise of the Great Depression, materially rich, spiritually lost, the generation felt frustrated with life and indulged in pleasure.③Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.6.Yoknapatawpha(约克纳帕塔法)①Most of Faulkner’s literary works were set in the small county of American South. It is the fictional modification of his hometown, Oxford, Mississippi.②To Faulkner, this small piece of land was worth a life’s work in literary writing and here Faulkner created a world of imagination.③Yoknapatawpha has become an allegory of the Old South, with which Faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience of the whole Southern society.7.Southern Renaissance(南方文艺复兴)①It is the revival of American Southern literature that began in the 1920s until the 1950s.②The writers affirmed their position on the superiority of the Southern lifestyle over that of the industrialized north.③William Faulkner and Katherine Anne Porter are writers of this type.Avant-garde (先锋派)①It is a French military and political term for the vanguard of an army or political movement.②This term extended since the late 19th century in literature, which refers to the innovative writer who is ahead of the time both in themes and style.③In the 20th century American literature, writers like Faulkner and e.e.cummings can be called avant-garde writers.8 Imagism:it’s a poetic movement of England and the U.S flourished from 1909 to 1917. The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by ―the direct treatment of the thing‖ and the economy of wording. The leaders of this mov ement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell艾米•洛威尔.Imagism:It came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image. Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: direct treatment of subject matter; economy of expression; as regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome节拍器. Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”is a well-known imagist poem.Imagism (意象派)①Imagism was a poetic school at the beginning of the 20th century.②Imagist poets strived for a simple, clear and vivid image, which in itself is the expression of art and meaning. The imagist poetry is a kind of free verse shaking of conventional metres and emphasizing the use of common speech and new rhythms.③This movement was led by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.Imagery (意象)①Imagery means words and phrases that create pictures ,or images in the readers’mind.②In a literary text, it occurs when an author uses an object that is not really there, in order to create a comparison between one that is, usually evoking a more meaningful visual experience for the reader.③It is useful as it allows an author to add depth and understanding to his work, like a sculptor adding layer and layer to his statue, building it up into a beautiful work of art.9.Black humor:To deal with tragic things in comic ways to make it more powerful and more tragic.It refers to the use of morbid病态的and absurd荒谬的for darkly comic purpose. It carries the tone of anger, bitterness in the grotesque situation of suffering, anxiety, and death. It makes the reader laugh at the blackness of modern life. The writers usually do not laugh at the characters.代表人物：Thomas Pynchon + Joseph HelleJoseph Heller：Catch-22 第22条军规It is not only a war novel, but also a novel about people’s life in peaceful time. This novel attacked the dehumanization of all contemporary institutions and corruptions of individuals who gain power in institutions. Armed-forces are the most outrageous example of the two evils.It is a combination of humor with resentment(怨恨), gloom, anger, and despair. Seeing all that is unreasonable, hypocritical, ugly, and even frenzied(狂乱的)，writers of black humor nurse a grievance(不平) against their society which, according to them, is full of institutionalized(制度化的) absurdity. Yet they are cynical. They laugh a morbid(病态的) laugh when facing the hideous（丑恶的）. In hopeless indignation（愤慨）they take up freezing irony and burning satire as their weapons. Their novels are often in the form of anti-novel（反传统小说）, devoid of(缺乏) completeness of plot and characterized by fragmentation（零碎的）and dislocation（混乱）.10.The Lost Generation(迷失的一代)①It is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.②Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.③The three best-known representatives of Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.Beat Generation/ The Beat Writers (垮掉的一代)①It refers to a loosely-knit group of poets and novelists, writing in the second-half of the 1950s and early 1960s.②They shared a set of social attitudes—anti-established, anti-political, anti-intellectual, opposed to the prevailing cultural, literary, and moral values, and were in favor of unfettered self-realization and self-expression.③Representatives of the group were Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. And the most famous literary creations produced by this group should be Allen Ginsberg’s long poem Howl(嚎叫) and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road(在路上).。
美国文学名词解释+作家赏析
Analogy：A comparison of two things alike in certain respects; particularly a method of exposition by which one unfamiliar object or idea is explained by comparing it with more familiar objects or ideas.Blank verse：Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.Conflict：The struggle which grows out of the interplay of the two opposing forces in the plot, such as the active opposition of characters, ideas, way of life. It is a dynamic test of the capacities of one thing or person to overcome whatever competes with or frustrates it or him. Conflict gives rise to suspense, drama, and the emotional tension that shapes our intuitions about characters and the values they are contending for. Convention：A literary convention is any device, style or subject matter that has become a recognized means of literary expression, an accepted element in technique by earlier and repeated usage.Illusion：No story provides optical illusions. Sensory experiences can only be evoked by language; they cannot be duplicated. Nevertheless, in varying degrees, stories can provide the sense that one is morally and emotionally involved in a situation shared with fictional characters. They smell the roses and feel the pain of a stab wound, but the reader envies the former experience and sympathizes with the latter, much as he or she would if the experiences were real.Omniscience：A convention in which the author tells the story in his or her own words. It is not uncommon in third-person narration for one of the characters to tell an extended story. In such a case it is quite proper to refer to him or her as a narrator.Point of view：The events of a story may be told as they appear to one or more participants to observers. In first person narration, the point of view is automatically that of the narrator. More variation is possible in third-person narration, where the author may choose to limit his or her report to what could have been observed or known by one of the characters at any given point in the action – or may choose to report the observations and thoughts of several characters. The author might also choose to intrude his or her own point of view.Rhyme：Similarity or identity of sound existing between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions within two or more lines of verse.Style：A writer‘s habitual way of expressing himself or herself and his or her unique arrangement of words including vocabulary, sentence patterns, and other compositional elements.Tension：The emotional and intellectual force generated by disparate potentials within a literary work. In every ambiguity there is a tension between the primary meaning and the secondary meanings of a word, phrase, or larger unit of expression. There may be tension between a comic tone and pathetic subject matter.1.Benjamin Franklin : A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Money; Poor Richard‘s Almanack; The Autobiography; The Way to Wealth. In June 1776, he was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence. Franklin‘s autobiography remains one of the classics of its kind. It shows Franklin as a man of versatile energy and new ideas, a man who represented American enlightenment and the fulfillment of American dream. It is a humorous and fascinating record of an old man‘s reflections on his r ise from a poor boy to a rich and famous personage through self-examination, self-reliance, self-improvement.1.Do you think the 13 virtues are equally important?2. Have you any preference?3. Are there some difficulties in carrying them out?答：1.No! I don't think the 13 virtues are equally important. They belong to different levels of the human virtues.2.I prefer the sixth. No industry, no anything! We change the world through protracted and unremitting efforts, this is what we should hold in mind for the value of our existence.3.Yes, of course. We are born with many bad manners. Only if we are consciously getting rid of bad habits, can we be a perfect man with all the moral virtues. And I think only extreme rationality can qualify man for the 13 moral virtues.2.Philip Freneau：The Rising Glory of America；The British Prison Ship；To the Memory of the BraveAmericans；On the Memorable Victory of John Paul Jones; The Wild Honeysuckle；The Indian Burying Ground. The Wild Honeysuckle: In this poem the poet expressed a keen awareness of the loveliness and transience of nature. He not only meditated on mortality but also celebrated nature. It implies that life and death are inevitable law of nature, "the wild honey suckle‖ is Philip Freneau's most widely read natural lyric with the theme of transience. The central image is a native-wild flower, which makes a drastic difference from elite flower images typical of tradition English poems. The poem showed strong feelings for the natural beauty, which was the characteristic of romantic poets.Structure and Form ：The poem is divided into four stanzas. Each stanza consists of four lines, which are composed in cross rhymes. Then, after an insertion, comes a rhyming couplet. The first four lines of each stanza describe the flower and address it. The last two lines show the fate of that flower. The rhythm is regular and iambic with four stressed syllables in each line. All cadences are male, except for those in the rhyming couplets of stanza three and four, which are female. The regularity of structure and form make the poem well-readable.Imagery ：Philip Freneau employs a language full of imagery. Especially personifications constitute a main part of ―The Wild Honey Suckle‖. Moreover, the flower itself is personified. The narrator talks to the flower as if it were a human being. He expresses that t he ―little branches greet‖, hopes that there will be no ―tear‖ of the flower and advices it to ―shun the vulgar eye‖. The ―roving foot‖ and the ―busy hand‖ are metaphors of the destruction of nature by men. Nature itself is personified as ―Nature‘s self‖ which arrayed the flowers ―and planted here the guardian shade and sent soft waters murmuring by‖. The waters are personified as well, being smooth and producing sounds like silent talking.Freneau was extremely sensitive to the beauties of nature. He expresses a keen awareness of the loneliness and transience of nature. Freneau personifies the flower in this poem to reflect how beautiful it is. The sounds of words effects created through changes in the rhythm. Especially in the last stanza he tells us the space between birth and death. The final verse to me is very comforting to those of us with little religious faith. It says simply, that death is like the time before birth. It is a non-existence that is not to be feared. Freneau describes the beauty of the flower very charmingly and sweetly. But at the same time, I can feel sorrow and loneliness of itself. And show the stern or hard realities of life and describe sensible way representing flower as real life.1. Do you think the poet is comparing the life of a flower with that of a man?2. What is implied in the phrase "but an hour"?答Yes. Just as the flowers, man come into the world and enjoy the life, and then come to death. This is the rule of the nature. No one can escape.With highly exaggerated means, it implies the transcience of life. Nobody knows what will happen in the next second, the footsprint of life may stop at every unexpected second.The Indian Burying Ground: The poem is about an Indian culture, especially and Indian funeral. It describes death in this tradition, which is looked at as rude and savage. Still, the speaker reveals a lot about its strength and beauty as the poem goes on. It is a message inviting people to understand this culture as it is without prejudices. Unlike the white man's tradition, in the Indian's, the dead Indian is dressed in special clothes as though celebrating a happy event. Death in the Indian tradition has a different meaning. It is no longer that sad and dreadful event that everyone is afraid of. The dead person becomes a warrior who protects the land. It is deep rooted and old, and believes in the existence of specters. It gives greatest value to the soul and considers it as the perfect and purest element in humans that live s eternally. The Indian culture is a strong one that has a strong belief in its principles that no reason can solve its mystery. By resorting to reason, one is to misunderstand and misjudge this beautiful culture that deserves more care and attention.3.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Voices of the Night; Ballads and Other Poems; Tales of a Wayside Inn; The Song of Hiawatha海华沙之歌----美国人写的第一部印第安人史诗; Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems; TheCourtship of Miles Standish迈尔斯·斯坦迪什的求婚----叙事长诗；The Secret of the Sea.. He was the first American to translate The Divine Comedy. Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses. Longfellow's poems are not only accessible in their meaning, but they are also highly regular in their form. It is very simple to teach metrics with Longfellow because he provides easy and memorable examples of so many metrical schemes.The Secret of the Sea: The poem reflects the romanticism writing because the whole poem deals with nature, and nature is a major aspect of the romanticism writing. The nature in the poem influences dreams and memories. Imagination, which could also go along with dreams and memories is another big aspect of romanticism writing. It uses flowing rhythm to express a longing many people have felt. In this poem the sea symbolizes life and the moral of t he poem lies in the lines of ‗Only those who brave its dangers comprehend its mystery‘.1.According to the helmsman, how can one learn the secret of the sea?2. Do you have any idea what the secret might be?答：―Only those who brave its dangers comprehend i ts mystery!" For those who are brave enough to confront the predictable or unexpected dangers and setbacks with opticism, they have the chance to learn the secret of the sea. With the process of going through a difficult period, one's soul can be fulfilled with power and strength. All the way through, but also the first of their soul purification.The secret is that the more powerful your mind and your soul are, the easier for you to conquer the dangers, the setbacks and so on all the bad things.Hymn to the Night: Although it is a song in praise of the Night, a very common subject about nature, it has a dignity proper foe its mood and message. The beautiful language, the regular rhythm and rhyme, and the device of personification all demonstrate the poet‘s craftsmanship and the European influence on his writing. Like his other lyrics, this poem also carries a moral message: endurance. The imagery of the hymn is very rich and diverse. Longfellow uses a lot of personifications, similes, metaphors, and other literary figures to create the aesthetic atmosphere of the poem. The most widely used device of the poem is personification. The central image of the poem is the Night that is a personification of the beloved woman. Another figure of speech that is widely used in the poem is metaphor. "The sable skirts" of the Night are "all fringed with light", so the image created by the poet is magic and light. The "perpetual peace" also flows from the fountain of cool air. This metaphor creates a feeling of calmness and pacification. Longfellow also uses similes when he is talking about two things at the same time. He explicitly compares the "calm, majestic presence of the Night" to the presence of "the one" he loves. In the last stanza the poet compares himself to Orestes ("Orestes-like I breathe this prayer"). This allusion to Greek mythology is very significant to the meaning of the poem. Longfellow also uses such a figure of speech as a paradox. The "chambers of the Night" are filled with "sounds of sorrow and delight". These two feelings would seem impossible to combine, but in the atmosphere of the poem such a combination strikes as an extraordinary and unusual one. The rhyme of the poem is in the form ABAB, as it can be seen in the following example: ―I heard the trai ling garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls!‖ Tone: The tone of the poem could be defined as a sort of admiration and veneration that there is toward a woman, who is personified as the Night. The Night is like a goddess honored, respected and above all loved.4.William Cullen Bryant:Thanatopsis; translation of Homer‘s Iliad and Odyssey; The Fountain; The White-Footed Deer; A Forest Hymn; The Flood of Years. His works demonstrate some British influence and American characteristics. He was good at using blank verse.无韵诗体He possessed a simple dignity and an impeccable, restrained style.To a Waterfowl: The narrator questions where the waterfowl is going. He questions his motives for flying. He warns the waterfowl that he could possibly find danger, traveling alone. But, this waterfowl is not alone. He knows that the waterfowl is being led by some Power. As the waterfowl reaches out of the narrator's sight, the narrator reflects on God's guidance in his own life. He knows that God is guiding him as well."To a Waterfowl" is written in iambic trimeter and iambic pentameter, consisting of eight stanzas of four lines. The poem represents early stages of American Romanticism through celebration of Nature and God's presence within Nature. Structure and Rhyme:Bryant neatly divides the poem into eight stanzas, each with the same metrical structure and each with the same rhyme pattern: the last syllable of the first line always rhymes with the last syllable of the third, and the last syllable of the second line always rhymes with the last syllable of the fourth. The use of iambs throughout the poem could be a way to suggest the flapping of wings. Figures of Speech: alliteration: While, Whither; depths, dost ; their, thou, thy; distant, do, darkly; metaphor: last steps of day (comparison of the day to a creature that walks); anaphora: repetition of soon; personification: The speaker addresses the waterfowl as if it were a person, saying it has taught a lesson; he also refers to other waterfowls as fellows.1.Can you divide the poem into 3 parts and summarize the main point of each one?2. What faith does the last stanza express?答：The first three stanzas are the first part, the middle three stanzas, the second part. And the last two stanzas are the third part. The first part is about the picture seen by the poet, that a waterfowl flying in the sky. Then hare comes the poet's meditation about the bird——its flight is related to the guidance of a divine power. The last part shows his final conclusion that he shall take the thoughts as a guidence of his own life.It expresses the ambitions and passion towards the life goal and your spiritual pursuit. One should be enthusiastic about your life all the time.5.Washington Irving : Rip Van Winkle；Diedrich Knicherbocker；The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent；The Legend of Sleepy Hollow；The Life of Oliver Goldsmith；Life of Washington. He is the father of American literature, the first great belletrist.第一个纯文学作家，美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家，重振了没落的哥特式浪漫主义小说。
美国文学名词解释（★）
美国文学名词解释（★）第一篇：美国文学名词解释1.AmericanTranscendentalism:①transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “ the recognition in man of the capability of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.②transcendentalists stress the importance of the Over-soul, the Individual and Nature.Other concepts that accompanied transcendentalism include the idea that nature is enabling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant.New England transcendentalism is the product of a combination of Native American Puritanism and European romanticism.③some prominent representatives include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau.2.Free verse free verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conversational rules of meter.Free verse was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century.Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate instead the free rhymes of nature period.Walt Whitman…s leaves of grass is perhaps the most notable example.3.American Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans.The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices.They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature.Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature.It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of nationalcultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.it comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century.Original sin, predestination（预言）and salvation（拯救）were the basic ideas of American Puritanism.And, hard-working, piousness（虔诚,尽职），thrift and sobriety（清醒）were praised.4.American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough.It usually implies a successful and satisfying life.It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S.Bill of Rights.5.Imagism: the 1920s saw a vigorous literary activity in America.In poetry there appeared a strong reaction against Victorian poetry.Imagists placed primary reliance on the use of precise, sharp images as a means of poetic expression and stressed precision in the choice of words, freedom in the choice of subject matter and form, andthe use of colloquial language.Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse, using such devices as assonance and alliteration rather than formal metrical schemes to give structure to their poetry..The movement which had these as its aims is known in literary history as Imagism.Its prime mover was Ezra Pound.6.American romanticism①it is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature that stretches from the 18th century to the outbreak of the civil war.It started with the publication of Washington Irving‟s The Sketch Book and ended with Walt Whitman‟s Leaves of Grass.②being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance ”.③American romantic works emphasize theimaginative and emotional qualities of nature literature.The strong tendency to eulogize the individual and common man was typical of this period.Most importantly, the writings of American Romanticism are typically American.Works concentrate on uniquecharacteristics of the American land.④New England Transcendentalism is the summit of American R omanticism.⑤Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others.第二篇：美国文学名词解释1.Naturalism:American naturalism was a new and harsher realism.America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths.They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity.Puritanism:Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God.3.Realism: Realism emphasizes on a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived.It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.4.Romanticism: romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and m an’s societies a source ofcorruption.Transcendentalism:They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and stressed the importance of the individual.They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.Nature was, to them, alive, filled with Go d’s overwhelming presence.6.Imagism意象主义: It’s a poetic movement of England and the U.S.flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording.7.Local Colorism: fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features – including characters, dialects, customs, history, and landscape –of a particular region.8.Lost Generation: It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles.It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in semi poverty.It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world.9.Beat Generation: It was a group of American post-World War IIwho came to prominence in the 1950s.They rejected conventional social and moral values;expressed their alienation in their works from conventional “square” society by adopting a life style which featured sex, drugs, jazz and the freedom of the open road.10.Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols.It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word.It’s one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation.11.Modernism：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary.Strictly, Modernism began in the late 19th century and regarded the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base.They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.12.A Jazz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s.With the rise of the greatdepression, the values of this age saw much decline.Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.第三篇：文学名词解释文学名词解释提前注明：名词解释是有技巧性的，要交代年代，作者，代表作，文学特征，文学的历史作用等等，以及对后世的影响。
美国文学名词解释
美国文学名词解释美国文学是指美国国内所产生的文学作品，包括小说、诗歌、剧本等各种文学体裁。
它具有自己的特点和风格，反映了美国人的文化、价值观念和思想观念。
美国文学中有许多特殊的名词和术语，下面是其中一些常见的名词解释：1. Puritanism（清教主义）: 清教主义是美国文学发展的重要起点之一，它是在17世纪早期由清教徒带入美洲的思想和信仰体系。
清教徒强调个人责任和纯洁的生活方式，他们的文学作品通常传达着信仰、奋斗和自我批判的主题。
2. American Renaissance（美国文艺复兴）: 美国文艺复兴指的是19世纪中期到20世纪初期的一个时期，这个时期出现了一大批杰出的美国作家和作品。
其中包括威廉·福柯特、纳撒尼尔·霍桑、赫尔曼·梅尔维尔等人的文学作品。
这些作品在内容、风格上更加关注人性、自然和道德等问题。
3. Realism（现实主义）: 现实主义是19世纪末至20世纪初的一种文学流派，在美国文学发展史中具有重要的地位。
现实主义作家力求以客观、真实的方式描绘生活中的人和事，关注社会问题和个人命运。
马克·吐温和亨利·詹姆斯被认为是现实主义文学中最有影响力的作家。
4. Harlem Renaissance（哈莱姆文艺复兴）: 哈莱姆文艺复兴是20世纪20年代至30年代期间，在纽约哈莱姆区集中发展起来的一种文化和艺术运动。
这个运动推动了非洲裔美国人在文学、音乐、舞蹈和绘画等领域的发展。
其中包括作家朗斯顿·休斯、小说家托妮·莫里森等的作品被认为是哈莱姆文艺复兴的代表作。
5. Beat Generation（垮掉的一代）: 垮掉的一代是20世纪50年代和60年代期间在美国兴起的一种文学和文化运动。
这个运动反对传统社会规范和价值观，追求自由和个性的表达。
杰克·凯鲁亚克和艾伦·金斯堡是这个运动的代表作家，他们的作品通常以自由、追求和反叛为主题。
美国文学史名词解释
1.American Puritanism清教It comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination（预言）and salvation（拯救）were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness（虔诚,尽职），thrift and sobriety（清醒）were praised.Characteristics: 特点1. Idealistic: Puritans pursue the purity and simplicity in worship. They focuse the glory of God, and the angry God.They believe in the doctrine of destiny, original sin, limited atonement2. Practical: Puritans come to Amrican to do business and make profits with the desire of chasing wealth and status. They have to struggle for survival under the severity of the western frontier.3 .The struggle between the spiritual and the material is the basics of the Puritan mind. On the one hand, Puritans chase the purity of the early church.On the other hand, they come to America to earn money. This contradictory will be reflected by their thoughts.4. In a word, it rests on purity, ambition, harding work, and an intense struggling for success.2.Romanticism浪漫主义: the literature term was first applied to the writers of the 18th century in Europe who broke away from the formal rules of classical writing. When it was used in American literature it referred to the writers of the middle of the 19th century who stimulated（刺激）the sentimental emotions of their readers. They wrote of the mysterious of life, love, birth and death. The Romantic writers expressed themselves freely and without restraint. They wrote all kinds of materials, poetry, essays, plays, fictions, history, works of travel, and biography.3.Transcendentalism先验说,超越论:is a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England, particular at Concord, as a reaction against Rationalism and Calvinism (理性主义and喀尔文主义). Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau.4.American Realism现实主义: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience5.Local colorism乡土文学: is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th century, particularly among the authors in the south of the U.S.. this style relied heavily on using words, phrases, and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place. local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本国语) language and satirical(讽刺的)humor. A well-known local colorism author was Mark Twain with his books Tom Sowyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.6.Naturalism自然主义: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism.It was initiated in France. American naturalism had been shaped by the war; by the social upheavals（剧变）that undermined the comforting faith of an ear lier age. America’s literary naturalists attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity. Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform.7.Stream of consciousness意识流：It is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing thatattempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce. Those novels broke through the bounds of time and space, and depicted vividly and skillfully the unconscious activity of the mind fast changing and flowing incessantly。
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American Transcendentalism （时间，主要主张和特征，代表人物，代表作）
定义
Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and '30s[1] in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School.
美国超验主义：它宣称存在一种理想的精神实体，超越于经验和科学之处，通过直觉得以把握。
时间：1830s-Civil War
主要主张：（我觉得主张就是特征就写一起了）
The Transcendental ists “placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over-soul, as the most important thing in the universe”
（1）The importance of intuition.（直觉）The Transcendentalists believed that individuals can intuitively receive higher truths otherwise unavailable through common methods of knowing.
(2) The importance of the individual.
(3) The importance of the nature.
代表人物：
Ralph Waldo Emerson 爱默生
代表作
Nature (《论自然》)
“The American Scholar”（《论美国学者》）
”Our Intellectual Declaration of Independence“
“Divinity School Address”(《神学院毕业班演说》)
Essays（《论文集》）
Essays: Second Series
“Representative Men" (《人类代表》)
Henry David Thoreau (梭罗)
Walden (1854) (《瓦尔登湖》)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (霍桑)
Twice –Told Tales《尽人皆知的故事》
Mosses from an Old Manse《古屋青苔》
The Scarlet Letter （《红字》）
The House of the Seven Gables （《带有七个尖角阁的房子》）
The Blithedale Romance （《福谷传奇》）
The Marble Faun （《玉石雕像》）
“Young Goodman Brown”(《好小伙布朗》)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利.华兹沃斯.朗费罗
Voices of the Night (1839) 《夜籁集》
-- catch the attention
Ballads and Other Poems (1841) 《歌谣及其它》
Evangeline (1847) 《伊凡吉林》
Hiawatha or The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
《海华莎之歌》
Imagism （时间，对Image 的定义，主要主张和特征，代表人物，代表作）
定义Imagism was poetic movement of England and the united states, flourishing from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in some imagist poets, includes the use of precise language, the creation of new rhythms, absolute freedom in choice of subject matter, and the evocation of concrete images.
时间：between the years 1909 and 1917
特征：
(1) “Direct treatment of the 'thing' whet h er subjective or objective;”
(2) “To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;”
(3) “As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome(节拍器).”
主张：It came into being as a reaction to the traditional English poetry characterized by cloudy verbiage, and aimed instead at a new clarity and exactness in the short lyric poem.
代表人物：
Ezra Pound
“The Cantos”。